


between forever

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M, not a particularly happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-09 22:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: Nezumi has dissociative identity disorder, but he doesn't know it. Meanwhile, Shion has been waiting for Nezumi to return for their promised reunion, but when the man does, it is not as he expected.Preview:Shion numbly took the scrap of paper Nezumi hastily scribbled on, using a pen he coerced from the taxi driver, whose fingers drummed the dashboard.“Nezumi, I don’t understand – ”“Call me, tomorrow should work. I’m so sorry, I really have to go – What was your name?”Nezumi was halfway in the taxi, his eyes lingering on Shion’s, who realized only then that he had let go of Nezumi’s sleeve to take the phone number.This was Nezumi. Shion was not mistaken, he was not dreaming, he was not hallucinating. The man about to leave him again was the same man who had left him six years before with a promise to return.“Shion.” It was whispered, but Shion did not see the need to be loud. Nezumi knew his name. This was a game, a guise of some sort, perhaps Nezumi was on the run, perhaps his acting career had sky-rocketed in those six years and this was a method act, this was just practice, just something Shion would play along with, not forever, just for a little bit longer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote and posted this fic in February, 2014, and I'll be reposting it one chapter every day (even though clearly it's already completed). 
> 
> I'm reposting some of my old fics from the many accounts I previously deleted over the past few years, so if you're familiar with my fics and want to request that I repost a certain old fave, feel free to message me at my tumblr: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com or comment on this post: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com/post/160488980276/danielles-nezushifree-fics and I'll be happy to consider reposting it! For both my new readers and my old guys, hope you enjoy the fic!! :D

_In the spaces of time that are too short to drink tea and read with just thighs and shoulders touching in bed, Shion does not yearn for an alternative._

_There is always the thought that this moment cannot last, but overriding that is the strangest feeling of forever, as if living uneventfully as though today is not their last can almost make that the truth. As if denial will reward him by fruition of what he knows cannot be true, can never be theirs._

_A peace is begged by the languid swirls of smoke from mugs, by the casual brush of arms that is anything but passionate, anything but desperate. Shion is content to bask in his illusion of forever only because contentment can come no other way but as a guise for sorrow, a mask before the moment when their forever is marred again by its reality._

**

He wasn’t looking, just buying. And just enough for one, a loaf of bread instead of two, two bags of potatoes instead of four. Sunlight was bitter on his skin. Shion was eager to return to the house, return behind the window, really, but he refused to think of it that way. Purchased enough so that it wouldn’t spoil, but last as long as possible before he had to be out again, not looking, just buying.

            And though he wasn’t looking, he still saw. Dark hair, shorter but still long enough to weave his fingers through, pushed by long pale hands out of his eyes, eyes too far away to see but Shion didn’t need to.

            He didn’t need the eyes to know that face, he’d have known that face anywhere, highlighted under a sun that wasn’t so bitter anymore, though no clouds had crept up on it.

            The bag of groceries for one was not dropped, but it felt as though a stomach was, somewhere among feet that were already running, nearly tripping, closing the distance between himself and that man.

            “Nezumi. Nezumi!”

            The man was looking, unlike Shion, his eyes searched around him, scanning, scanning but not seeing. Despite Shion’s shouts he did not turn his head, even when only feet of distance cowered between the two, even when Shion raised his voice.

            “Nezumi!”

A foot between them was still too much; the grey eyes – Shion could see that they were grey now, but of course he’d known, he’d known all along – only fell on Shion’s as if by accident.

            “Nezumi,” Shion breathed, having thought of this moment enough times to have no idea what to expect, to have every idea of what to hope for.

            In response, he was blinked at.

            An embrace was not a given. Tears were not a given, a steady repetition of his name was not a given, any contact at all – kiss, handshake, grasp of his arm – none were given. Even a smirk, that damn smirk, was not a given. Expected, maybe, but Shion was equally aware that nothing was guaranteed.

            Recognition, however – this was guaranteed, if their reunion would have anything it would be this, it would be grey eyes that knew what they saw.

            Shion watched the man, his Nezumi, peer at him as the produce man did – no, with even less recognition than that. This was the gaze of a stranger – a flustered stranger, at that.

            “I’m sorry, what was that?”

            “Nezumi?” It was a question, but there was no doubt. Confusion, but not doubt.

            “I – I don’t understand – I’m sorry, I really have to be going, oh, taxi! Taxi! Yes, thank you – ”

            The bag of groceries for one was shaking in the crook of Shion’s arm until he realized it was he who was shaking; his skin felt loose, shivered over his bones, crawled with his bewilderment, his desperation.

            He reached out, latched a hand on the sleeve of the man who refused to respond to his name.

            This was their reunion. This was not another goodbye, this was their reunion, something he had been promised, something he had been waiting for, stalled by six years, and now – now it would not be taken from him.

            “Nezumi, where are you going? What’s going on, why are you leaving?”

            The unspoken word was perhaps the most desperate.

            _Again._ Why are you leaving _again?_

            Recognition did not appear in the form Shion had expected, but there was an opening of lips, a pause of a man with one hand on the door of a taxi, the other caught by Shion’s grasp.

            “Oh. _Oh_ , I see, of course, that would explain – Look, I’m so sorry I can’t explain it right now, my daughter’s got a dance recital in ten minutes and this place is an hour away – The wife’s gonna kill me, you understand.”

            Never had Shion understood less. His tongue fumbled over too many objections to Nezumi’s statement that he could not settle on one and made no sound at all.

            The grey eyes softened, looked at him in a way in which they rarely ever had. Since when had sympathy ever had a home on Nezumi’s features? Since when had it blemished the face of the man Shion knew, the man Shion had waited for?

            “What did you call me? Nezumi?” Nezumi shook his head, closing his eyes as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair again. “I wish I could explain – Here, let me just… I’ll give you my home number, call that, and we’ll meet up. I’ll explain everything, it’s no good to do it now, I’m already late.”

            Shion numbly took the scrap of paper Nezumi hastily scribbled on, using a pen he coerced from the taxi driver, whose fingers drummed the dashboard.

            “Nezumi, I don’t understand – ”

            “Call me, tomorrow should work. I’m so sorry, I really have to go – What was your name?”

            Nezumi was halfway in the taxi, his eyes lingering on Shion’s, who realized only then that he had let go of Nezumi’s sleeve to take the phone number.

            This was Nezumi. Shion was not mistaken, he was not dreaming, he was not hallucinating. The man about to leave him again was the same man who had left him six years before with a promise to return.

            “Shion.” It was whispered, but Shion did not see the need to be loud. Nezumi knew his name. This was a game, a guise of some sort, perhaps Nezumi was on the run, perhaps his acting career had sky-rocketed in those six years and this was a method act, this was just practice, just something Shion would play along with, not forever, just for a little bit longer.

            “Shion,” Nezumi repeated. “I’m – I’m sorry about this.”

            He closed the door and the taxi drove.

            Shion stood and watched Nezumi disappear again. He dropped the bag of groceries for one.

*

Shion examined each number as he dialed it though he had the contents of the creased paper memorized.

            The ring erupted loudly into his ear. It was cut off after two and a half rings.

            “Hello!”

            Shion stared at the paper he’d tattooed with the smudge of his fingers enough times in the thirty hours since it had been given to him to have blurred the inked edges of the numbers.

            “Helloooo?” It was a little girl, shouting into the phone. Her voice was high-pitched and young, cheerful and innocent.

            “I – I wanted to speak to Nezumi. It’s Shion.”

            “Nezumi? No Nezumi.”

            The bitten nails of his forefinger and thumb pinched the second scrawled digit. “He gave me this number yesterday. He said to call him – Nezumi. His name is Nezumi.”

            “Nope. Wrong number, sir! Have a good day!”

            “No – don’t hang up!” Shion shouted to the dial tone. The phone felt heavy, slipping in his palm. He crumpled the number.

*

The next day Shion was at the market. He was looking and buying. Eyes scanning as he picked up another loaf of bread, two more bags of potatoes.

            The day before he had only bought for one; now he needed groceries for two.

*

The second call was answered by the voice of a woman instead of a girl.

            “Hello?”

            Shion continued to smooth the crumpled paper against the counter though it lay completely flat. “Hi. My name is Shion. I – Two days ago, Nezumi gave me this number and asked me to call – ”

            “Who?”

            “Nezumi. He – Grey eyes? Dark hair in a shaggy cut, tall, pale – ”

            “Nezumi is dead. Please do not call this number again, it only causes distress.”

            The dial tone immediately poured into Shion’s ear; he did not drop the phone. He kept it pressed to his skin, hoping that the buzzing would fill his eardrums, drown the words of the woman, spoken in a clipped, cold tone.

            _Nezumi is dead._

            Shion had been prepared to believe that three days before. He had been prepared to hear the news before the man in the market, before Nezumi kept his promise only to break it in less than five minutes.

            When Nezumi’d had six years to die, Shion had been prepared to accept it – not easily, but as a possibility, yes.

            Two days, however, was not a possibility. Two days since Shion had seen Nezumi – and he had seen him, he had spoken to him, stood within a foot of him, watched him write this number, taken this paper from his hand – was not long enough for the man to die.

            It was not enough, for Nezumi to come back only to leave again.

            It was not enough, for it to end like this.

            When Shion doubled over, dry heaving gasping breaths onto the kitchen floor, one hand continued to press that dial tone against his ear.

*

After one loaf of bread and two bags of potatoes went bad, Shion did not buy for two again.

            On the seventh-year anniversary of a promise made and broken, Shion returned from the market, placed his bag of groceries for one on the counter. Movements were mechanical, with bread finding its way into a cupboard, vegetables into drawers of the fridge; it was routine, as was Shion on the sofa, spreadsheets over the table that he read carefully.

            It was not rare, that he fell asleep on the couch. He did not often sleep on the bed anymore.

            It felt achingly big.

            Dreams of nothing were interrupted by the knock on the door, light and barely there, but enough to open eyes that glanced at a clock and read half past three. Shion stood slowly, carefully unfolding cramped limbs, and walked to the door.

            He did not have expectations. He did not have hope. He was half-asleep, getting up only to observe the wind pattering on his door. Perhaps a small animal tapped the wood. The area was not in ruins anymore, and while stray dogs were no longer common, nor were they extinct.

            The open doorway housed a man. Darkness swallowed the color of his eyes, but the color didn’t matter.

            What mattered was the recognition.

            Nezumi did not speak, and it was half a minute until Shion could, lips already having parted and waiting for the words to warm the cool night air.

            “You’re not dead.”

            “Quite an analysis.” Nezumi’s response was only a beat late, so quiet Shion had to lean in to hear it.

            Wanted to lean in to hear it.

            “Don’t. Don’t joke.”

            Nezumi nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. Shion,” he started, but he didn’t finish, just left Shion’s name hanging between them.

            It was enough for Shion to pull the door open and allow the man to return to their house. He closed the door on the night and faced the wood, not willing to turn around.

            A pregnant pause, then, “I need to shower. Mind if I…?”

            “There’s an extra towel in the bathroom,” Shion said, to the door. He closed his eyes and listened to Nezumi walking through their house, opening their bathroom door, closing it, turning on their shower faucet.

            He was probably undressing now. Shedding his clothing on their bathroom floor. Stepping into their shower. The close of the curtain was only slightly muted by the shower spray and the shut door, but Shion could hear it. He was breathing quietly enough, or maybe not at all.

            The shower spray turned off while Shion watched his tea cooling in the mug between cupped hands. He had placed some of his own clean clothes outside the bathroom door, and listened to the door opening then closing again. He tried to imagine Nezumi dressing, but could hardly even picture the man’s face. Instead, swirls of steam blurred the edges of his lips, grazed the side of his jaw, lingered on a few strands of his hair that were all Shion could muster in his mind.

            Shion was well versed in forgetting what this man looked like. He did it like a pro, without an ounce of sorrow.

            Maybe an ounce. No more than that.

            The door opened again, a sigh of a sound, mixing with Shion’s breaths. Nezumi stood in the kitchen doorway, his t-shirt short enough to reveal the band of Shion’s shorts, cut off by pants lingering around his ankles.

            “The clothes are small. Sorry,” Shion said, into his tea, not loud enough for Nezumi to hear, barely loud enough to hear himself.

            “Tea. I could use some.”

            The second mug had not been used in too long. Shion poured hot liquid into it, worrying that he’d poured too much, that it would scald his flesh.

            It might have been nice, to feel the warmth. He didn’t stop pouring, despite his worries.

            “Thanks,” Nezumi said, reaching out his own hand.

            Shion had to pull away then, when pale fingers reached. The level of liquid flirted with the lip of the mug but didn’t quite kiss it.

            “The clothes are small. Sorry.” Shion tried again because it was something to fill the air, something other than steam quickly cooling in a kitchen that had seemed too large just a few hours before.

            The lips Shion could hardly picture pulled into a grimace. The shake of Nezumi’s head was accompanied by the slight shift of damp locks. Some had plastered against pale skin, light and dark melding into one. Pale skin was paler, dark hair even more so.

            “I don’t care about the clothes.”

            Shion nodded. Uncupped his hands from his mug and stepped away from the counter without a sip. It occurred to him that two in the morning was for sleeping. Not tea, not conversation, not explanations.

            His pulse was too thick for sleeping, but he could ignore it. He was good at ignoring.

            Almost to the doorway, and fingers fumbled on his sleeve, grabbing hold until he turned, faced with nothing but the longest of looks.

            “Shion.”

            Shion could do nothing but stare back. He would memorize it now – the pull of too-pale skin over cheekbones, the set lips, the jawline hard and working, the drop of water escaping that mess of hair darker than night, and the eyes.

            They were quiet eyes, even then, when everything else was loud, from the fumble of Nezumi’s fingers still creasing Shion’s sleeve to the set of his jaw.

            “You asshole,” Shion muttered, and Nezumi jerked him with those fumbling fingers, pulled Shion so roughly he all but fell against the solidity of a chest, of a human being right there in his kitchen, of _this_ human being right there in _their_ kitchen.

            Clutching hands could not find hold, not enough, and Shion let them instead fall into fists, using his arms that wound up around Nezumi’s shoulder blades instead to hold Nezumi right there. Nezumi’s fingers fell about Shion’s waist, settled there, dug into his clothes.

            Shion breathed the smell of his own laundry detergent, pressed his face into the shoulder of his own t-shirt, too small on this man. He felt Nezumi’s chest against his, his breaths pressing it closer with each inhale, pulling it back with each exhale.

            He thought he heard Nezumi whisper “It’s okay,” but that could have just been his own thoughts, repeating themselves until they tangled into each other, and he didn’t bother untangling them, craving the chaos, the incoherence of his own mind.

            He didn’t want to think. Just to feel, feel that this man was real, alive, and returned to him.

            For that moment, that was enough.

            For that moment, it was okay.

            The fumbling fingers on his waist unlatched, and Shion let his arms fall back to his own sides. The warmth of a chest was lost from his, and those lips were uncertain, those eyes trying to hide themselves behind bangs too wet to fall in anything but clumps that didn’t quite shield them.

            “You look exhausted.” Shion spoke to fill the space he didn’t want between them.

            There was a faint nod, but the uncertainty doubled.

            Shion knew he was owed an explanation. He knew he had the right to sit the bastard down, to pummel the early morning hours until light shown out of its cuts and even then forbid Nezumi from sleeping.

            He wanted the answers almost as much as his fists craved the feel of the pale skin stretched too tightly over cheekbones, almost as much as his chest longed for the warmth that had just left it.

            Sleep was not the most coveted option. But it was the smartest, and choosing paths merely on emotion had led to seven years of nothing, seven years of waiting, seven years of forgetting, seven years of giving up.

            Shion stifled his instincts.

            “We can talk in the morning.”

            In truth, Shion didn’t care about what option was smartest. He did not care about learning from mistakes and forgoing the options with fuels of emotions.

            He chose sleep because it was the option of a promise.

            The promise of the next morning. The promise of a point in the future that Nezumi would be present in. The promise of just a little more time.

            The promise of what Shion did not dare call forever, but maybe the beginning of it.

*

Nezumi slept until midday.

            Shion watched first from beside him on the bed, then from the couch, then from the doorway of the kitchen: One hand curled around the edge of the pillow, the blanket fell around legs and nothing else, Shion’s shirt had risen over Nezumi’s navel, bunched just under his ribcage. His lips were open, pressed against the pale underside of a wrist. Hair scattered wildly, untamed, dark feathers staining the pillowcase and the paleness of his cheeks and forehead.

            Occasionally, a foot twitched.

            Nezumi woke with slow eyelids prying themselves open to a dimly lit room. The fingers tightened around the pillow, then let go completely and flipped over his face, pushing dark hair from his forehead.

            Shion retreated into the kitchen and watched the off-white walls, listening to a yawn from the other room and the softness of bare feet on carpet. While the bathroom sink ran, Shion poured another mug of tea and took it to the couch.

            Nezumi joined him with grogginess still creased into his cheeks alongside light wrinkles from the pillow.

            “Explain one year ago.” There was no script. No point from which to start. There was only curiosity, anger, sadness, and under it all, forgiveness, suffocating beneath the rest and waiting to be relieved of such burdens.

             “One year ago.”

            The phone number was between Shion’s fingers. He’d kept it in the night table, never calling it again after _Nezumi is dead_. Once, he’d taken out the slip of paper, rubbed his fingers over the dried ink, folded it as small as he could, then unfolded it carefully and placed it back in the drawer.

            Wary eyes were drawn to the paper, lingered there with a curiosity that shouldn’t have been present.

            What should have been present was recognition. Was an explanation jumping off the tongue.

            “This. Explain this.” Shion held the worn paper out. He allowed Nezumi to take it, just the tips of pale fingers careful not to touch his.

            “What is this?”

            “You don’t remember?” The idea was absurd.

            “What is it?”

            Squinted eyes drew up from the paper to meet Shion’s. This was a man Shion had learned to trust with his life, but trust seemed something foolish now, a child’s entertainment.

            Shion shook his head. “You gave it to me. You wrote this down, a little less than a year ago, I saw you at the market and you said you couldn’t talk, you wrote this down and said to call – ”

            “I didn’t see you a year ago.”

            “Yes. Yes, you did.”

            “No,” Nezumi looked at him from the corners of his eyes, and it was concern that dripped down the dip of his lips. “Shion, I didn’t.”

            “Yes.” Two could be stubborn, but only one could be right. Shion did not have trust, but he did have a memory, and it worked fine. “You wrote this. Nezumi, why are you – ?”

_Lying. Why are you lying?_

            It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Confusing and painful. It wasn’t supposed to hurt, still. It was supposed to be okay now, Shion could not fathom why it wasn’t okay now.

            “Look.” Nezumi leaned across the table, grabbed a pen and a blueprint of a school Shion was working on getting built. Nezumi glanced at the note he’d written a year before, then scribbled onto the blueprint.

            Those were official blueprints, not to be scribbled on. Shion did not object.

            “See. Same set of numbers, but this is my handwriting. Nothing like that.”

            “Nezumi, I saw you write it,” Shion insisted because this was getting ridiculous, this game Nezumi was playing.

            “I’ve never seen this number before.”

            “I saw you write it.”

            Two pale fingers traced full lips that opened for a sigh when the fingers dropped. “Shion. I saw a guy once, with white hair, and for a second, yes, I thought – ”

            “No. _No._ It wasn’t like that, I’m not – No, Nezumi, for once, you’re not right. You don’t know everything, you don’t have the right answer. You’re wrong, Nezumi, sometimes you’re wrong.”

            Hands pushed bangs out of quiet eyes, and Nezumi shook head. “Okay. But I didn’t write that. You must have – ”

            “Don’t tell me what I did! You don’t know everything about me, everything that’s good for me! I saw you – I _talked_ to you, Nezumi, it was you, there’s no other option this time, it was you.”

            “You talked to me.”

            To smack the skepticism from that expression was everything Shion wanted. Instead, he breathed deeply. “Yes.”

            “What did I say?”

            “You – You said you didn’t know who I was, that you were late for your daughter’s recital, that you were sorry and wished you could explain but didn’t have time.”

            “I don’t have a daughter.”

            “Nezumi, it was you.”

            “If I didn’t know who you were – ”

            “Memory loss!” Shion shouted, amazed that he hadn’t thought of it before, relieved to have an answer that wasn’t painful. “That must be it – And that’s why you can’t remember this.”

            “That doesn’t make sense. I know who you are now. If I had memory loss, how would I remember you now and not a year ago?”

            “You – ”

            Nezumi put a hand on Shion’s shoulder, shook him slightly. “It wasn’t me. I’m going to guess you called the number. It wasn’t me, was it?”

            Shion gritted his teeth, wanted to hit away Nezumi’s hand but more than that, wanted to cup his own hand over it, prove to himself that this time, Nezumi was real. “They said you were dead.”

            Nezumi clearly hadn’t expected that, and grey eyes slipped to somewhere by his knees. “You believed them?”

            “Yes.”

            “Shion – ”

            “Explain it! Explain this, Nezumi, you owe me, you owe me the truth!”

            “Shion, I’m sorry.” The grey eyes rose to his, accompanied by a small shrug. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. Forget about it. I’m not dead.”

            If everything else was, at least this wasn’t a lie. But Shion could not forget about it, could not forget grieving for a death that was not real.

            Yet he found, if he thought only of the hand still on his shoulder, he could put it out of his mind, if only for a little while.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Nezumi was not able to effectively disguise his irritation when Shion brought up the phone number after that, but that did not stop Shion from bringing it up in the next few hours, nor did Nezumi’s irritation stop him from continuing to answer all of Shion’s other questions.

            He answered with patience, sometimes sadness, rarely anger, though Shion watched his hands furl into fists a few times. Afternoon rolled quickly into evening on the backs of traded stories, a recap of years that were too painful to relive, but done so anyway, with the aid of soup and tea and just a little bit of whiskey.

            Time did not exist. The clock was nothing but a witness to conversation lapping midnight, surpassing the first few hours of the following morning without hesitance.

            It was past five in the morning, when time was given any notice at all. Words had begun jumbling, quickly tumbling in spurts then subsided by expanding passages of silence spent carefully watching the other and sipping tea topped with whiskey.

            “It’s late,” Shion murmured, thinking to put the mugs in the sink but making no action on it.

            “Mmm,” Nezumi agreed, and then his lips were on Shion’s, with a suddenness that was unexpected but a desire that was inevitable, hinted at since the man had walked through the door.

            Shion kissed him back, tasting the bitterness of alcohol on his mouth and cringing from it but not hesitating in opening his lips, in kissing Nezumi fully. Their mouths were clumsy, teeth jarring each other and each other’s lips as they poured gasps into the other’s throats. They drifted apart just as quickly as they came back together, breathing too loudly.

            Shion was unsure, but had fantasized enough to know where he wanted to put his hands, where he wanted his skin to touch. Fingers tangled in hair, pulled too sharply, there were moans of pain and pleasure so intermixed even the man who uttered them was unsure what he meant.

            It moved too quickly, where Shion straddled Nezumi, grinding into the man beneath him, lost in the feel of their clothes and the friction of skin against cloth. Their shirts were discarded somewhere, Nezumi’s hand had circled behind Shion’s waist, fingers reached beneath Shion’s jeans and the back of his boxers, touching too much, too fast.

            “Ah,” Shion exhaled sharply enough to drag sound with breath, wondered if it was a protest or plea. His chin was tilted up, exposing the neck Nezumi bit into, kissed gently.

            There were things Shion wanted, but he didn’t think this was the way, not when he was still angry, fuming, forgiveness not yet uncovered completely though a bit of it shone through, which the hand Nezumi slipped to his zipper was helping dust off.

            The zipper was jarring, a spit of sound that brought with it remembrance that this was reality, not another fantasy, that it would not leave only his hand and boxers wet but also the skin of another person, the too pale skin of this man.

            Shion ducked his head down, forehead pressing against Nezumi’s bare shoulder. He shook his head, closed his eyes, felt dizzy and then nauseous. There was pressure in his abdomen he knew Nezumi could relieve, but there was fright too that only Nezumi could cause.

            Trust was something Shion had discarded and finding it now seemed paramount, but there simply was no time, not with Nezumi’s palm cupping over the fabric of his boxers, sliding up and down, a new kind of friction that clenched Shion’s toes.

            “I don’t – ” Shion managed, but his voice hitched and was smothered between their chests. He had to try again, could not do this, not when this man had left him for seven years, not when Shion still couldn’t trust that the next morning wouldn’t find another phone number on his pillow in place of the man who’d already broken his promise once.

            “Shit,” Nezumi muttered, voice low, into the soft skin below Shion’s ear.

            “Stop.” It was a whisper, but the hand on the front of Shion’s boxers froze and the hand in the back of his jeans stopped sliding backward. Relief was overwhelming. Shion shook his head, inched his body back along Nezumi’s thighs so he was closer to Nezumi’s knees than his crotch.

            “What – What – ”

            “I can’t,” Shion said, and the hands were retracted from his clothes. He took deep breaths, willing the pressure to unravel itself from the heated knot it had formed.

            Nezumi was all gasping breath fighting to pull himself together. His hand pushed up bangs Shion had scattered out of eyes that were still glazed but not angry. He nodded and licked his lips. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”

            Shion slid off Nezumi’s lap fully, rezipped his jeans, found his t-shirt from the floor. He showered for over a half hour, forehead against the tile wall and back to the spray as he finished off what he hadn’t let Nezumi complete. He bit his forearm to stifle his moans and pictured the glazed grey eyes, slightly hidden by scattered bangs. Instead of his hand he felt Nezumi’s long fingers, Nezumi’s large palm. Instead of steam from the water scalding his back it was Nezumi’s breath, the gasps hitting his skin like brands.

            In bed that night, Shion had a wet dream of the man sleeping beside him, which Nezumi tactfully ignored, perhaps only because Shion made no comment that the blanket was damp on Nezumi’s side as well, when he stuck it in the washer the next morning with both of their wet pajama shorts.

*

Kissing was okay.

            It was less of a decision and more of a necessity. The more commonplace that smirk grew the more Shion had to be kissing it, memorizing it with his lips that were often open and halfway through a sentence that had no time to be finished. Not when Nezumi needed to be pressed against a wall, pinned there so that he could not leave again while Shion gripped his skin beneath his t-shirt, while Nezumi’s hands weaved in Shion’s hair and pulled him even closer.

            Nezumi teased him, but lightly and with understanding, never forcefully, never angrily. Shion knew he was trying and with each morning beside the man, trust was a little more uncovered, not quite found completely but he had a finger on it, and sometimes woke Nezumi with a kiss this way, a thank you for staying, for making it easier to believe.

            When they did finally have sex, Nezumi was rough but worried, and Shion saw in shaking fingertips that this man was just as unsure of trust. His uncertainty came from what it meant, not where it had gone – Nezumi had it in his hands, held it out for Shion but looked at it with confusion, with doubt that it should even be given away.

            They were clumsy and did not fit together like puzzle pieces. Nezumi was tall and elegant but his eagerness got in the way, whereas Shion was wary and unable to relax. When both men were finally finished, they were more relieved that it was over with than that it had happened.

            Shion laid in his sweat and despite the catastrophe of it, could not help but smile at another promise of trying again, that this was sex with Nezumi _for the first time_ , which meant there would be a second, a third, a fourth…

            He fell asleep with Nezumi’s fingers curled against his palm, and woke with them there too.

*

Nezumi had not come back from the market in six hours when Shion went to look for him. He had paced enough of the house to warrant a new path, and took his pacing outside in the direction of the market, nothing but a dark sky to witness his refusal to consider anything but that the man had simply been bartering with the baker for the entire afternoon and evening.

            The market was empty enough that Shion did not have to walk around for an hour and a half, but he did so anyway. The theater was void of the actor just hired for two new roles, and the park held nothing but gently creaking swings and an empty slide.

            Shion returned home full of hope, but darkness was the only presence in the house when he walked in.

            He did not sleep, but sat on the couch in a pose he had not taken since Nezumi’s return, watching the door and wary of a bed too big for one.

            Morning only brought with it light and added worry. Not anger, not yet.

            Not sadness, not yet.

            Shion waited for two days before retrieving the phone number he had not looked at in two months. The numbers matched those he had memorized, but he stared at them anyway as he dialed.

            One ring, and then – “Hello?”

            Shion closed his eyes. Relief, confusion, and anger behind eyelids. “Nezumi. Nezumi, _where the hell are you?”_

            “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong – Hold on. Nezumi, that’s familiar… Are you – You’re the guy with the…Shion! That was your name, right?”

            “What are you doing? What is this, Nezumi, I don’t get it, and I can’t – ”

            “You must be so confused, I’m sorry, I was expecting your call, but I guess – ”

            _“Daddy, Daddy, Mom says she needs help!”_

            The high pitch of the girl’s voice was familiar. Shion pressed the phone harder against his ear.

            “Tell her I’m coming, hon, just give Daddy a second – Right, Shion, sorry about that. Tomorrow, let’s meet up tomorrow. You live by that market place where I saw you, right? How about we meet there, I think I remember how to get there, I’ve had to come back a number of times, that’s for sure.”

            “No. No, you’ll explain right now, Nezumi, I don’t understand – ”

            “I’m so sorry, I don’t think this is the kind of thing that should be explained over the phone. Are you free tomorrow? Noon?”

            Shion wanted to say no. He wanted to throw the phone across the room, to rip up the phone number, to shout. But more than that, he wanted his fists against Nezumi’s goddamn smirk, and that could only come if they met. “Fine. Yes.”

            “Great, that’s great. I’ll see you tomorrow then, Shion.”

            Shion hung up.

*

“Shion. Hi, how are you?”

            Shion didn’t punch him only because this was not the Nezumi who had returned to him for two months. This Nezumi was happier, shier, wore his hair a little differently and held his hand out on greeting as if that was appropriate after everything.

            After _everything._

            It was a similar Nezumi to the man Shion had met a year ago without recognition, the one who had scribbled a phone number on a paper that resided in Shion’s pocket then disappeared into a taxi. This Nezumi had some recognition, but it was a casual sort, not the gaze Shion knew so well, not the calculating x-ray of quiet eyes but a warm evaluation of curiosity that was strange, on that face he knew so well.

            “Nezumi.”

            There was a grimace. “Right, I should introduce myself. Shall we sit?”

            They’d met outside a café, and sat across from each other on white chairs, forcing Nezumi to retract his hand.

            “I’m Ko. Well, Shinko, but just call me Ko, I can’t remember the last time someone called me Shinko.”

            Shion shook his head but said nothing. A waiter came and took Nezumi’s order of a latte.

            Nezumi did not drink lattes. Shion ordered water.

            “God, I don’t know how to go about this. You’re the first person I’ve met who knew one of them – I don’t know where to start.” Nezumi chuckled lightly, lightheartedly, a strange sound Shion couldn’t quite place within the spectrum of Nezumi’s laughs he had memorized.

            “I guess I’ll just start bluntly then. Ah, let’s see – I have DID, er, dissociative identity disorder. Have you heard of it?”

            The café was not loud. The waiter deposited a latte and a glass of water Shion had no inclination to touch. The grey eyes watched him apologetically.

            “It’s the multiple personality thing,” Shion said, finally. He recalled a few things about it from Safu, with her studies in psychoanalysis. The things he knew about it he tried to forget, tried not to apply to this situation, tried not to gauge whether they fit or not, could be plausible or not.

            This was a lie. This was a game, an act that Nezumi needed to quit.

            “Yeah. I’ve known about it since I was twelve, I kept blanking out and realizing I was missing chunks of my life. I went to a therapist and after a little less than a year I was diagnosed. It’s really rare, so they were hesitant, but I do therapy and hypnotism – I know, it sounds crazy, I was skeptical at first too – but it really works to bring out the alters. Er, the other personalities, I mean.”

            Shion’s fingers fumbled with his sleeves. “I don’t understand. Nezumi, stop this.”

            The gentle smile was not familiar nor wanted. “I’m not Nezumi. I’m going to assume he’s one of my alters, but he’s never come out in therapy. A few of them have come out, I know about five of them, and my kids even know about one woman. She likes to stick around for a few days, the girls love her, but they’re young, they don’t really understand DID, they think she’s just Daddy putting on a show for them.” Nezumi shook his head with a smile.

            Shion hardly processed any of what Nezumi was saying, despite listening closely to every word. “That doesn’t – Nezumi, what are you doing?”

            “Nezumi. That’s an interesting name.” Nezumi pulled out a small notebook from his pocket, opened it and scribbled his name on top of a page in a handwriting that was not quite right. “You see, I’ve never met anyone who knew one of my alters. I mean, they show up sometimes, but never long enough to make any kind of impression, definitely not long enough to form relationships with people outside my family. Shion, can you tell me how you know this Nezumi?”

            “I’m not playing this game.” Shion couldn’t stop looking at the way Nezumi had written his name. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t Nezumi’s handwriting. He held the pen differently too.

            “Ah, right, I’m really sorry, Shion. I guess I’m not being sensitive – I’m just eager to know about the guy, you know? It’s just, the more I know about my alters, the more I can control them, and the doc even said something about trying to fuse them into one personality – it’s a bit of a hassle losing myself all the time, you can imagine. Look, do you have any questions about DID? Anything you want to know?”

            “I want to know why you’re doing this.”

            Nezumi looked sorry. He sipped his latte and did not seem to find the taste strange despite it being his first latte, from what Shion knew. “I guess it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I’m different than this Nezumi though, aren’t I? I know it, my doc has videotaped me when some of the alters come out, and it’s still my body, but it looks different, you know? The expressions, the mannerisms, the posture, even the voice, sometimes. It’s because the alters, they’re not just parts of my personality, they’re completely different personalities, completely different people. I’m not this Nezumi. You can see that, can’t you?”

            Shion swallowed. Shook his head. He didn’t want to see it.

            “Tell me what Nezumi looks like.”

            “You. You, he is you, I won’t – ”

            “I mean, you know, his expressions. His hair, the way he carries himself.”

            Shion stared at his glass of water. “You don’t usually have your hair tucked behind your ears. It’s usually more disheveled, but you used to have it longer, and kept it in a ponytail mostly. You’re – You don’t smile as much. You’re more guarded, and right now you’re open and friendly and not sarcastic like you usually are. I don’t understand it.”

            Nezumi looked at him patiently, expectantly, in a way Nezumi never did, and it occurred to Shion that this was not Nezumi.

            This was a stranger. His name was Shinko, but he went by Ko. He had daughters and a wife.

            He did not know Shion.

            “No, this is wrong. You’re wrong. He’s not – Nezumi is not just some – He’s real! I know him, he’s – ”

            “How do you know him, Shion? Do you know him well?”

            “Yes. Yes, I – I know him very well. What if – What if you’re right, okay? But what if you’re the alter? I mean, you didn’t know about Nezumi, and Nezumi didn’t know about you, so it’s an equal chance – ”

            “Shion, I’m sorry. But I can’t be the alter, I have a family, a mother and father – well, in name, but the bastard’s dead now anyway – and two brothers. I have a wife and kids – ”

            “Nezumi had a family! He had a mother and father and sister – ”

            “Have you met them? Did you ever see a birth certificate?”

            Shion stared. “No. No, but that’s only because they died in a fire when he was young!”

            “Don’t you think that’s convenient? All of my alters have families that have died or live too far away to consider meeting.”

            “There’s nothing convenient in the way Nezumi’s family died,” Shion hissed, feeling his pulse all over his body, hot and shaking.

            “Look, I’m sorry. Have you ever met anyone from Nezumi’s past?”

            “Inukashi! There’s Inukashi, they knew each other since they were kids – ”

            “I ran off a lot, as a kid. Disappeared for a day or two. Did they ever see each other for long periods of time, or was it just sporadically?”

            Shion didn’t know the answer and didn’t want to. He felt sick. It didn’t make sense, Nezumi was _real._

            “Tell me how you know him. When did you meet? When are the last times you’ve seen him?”

            “Three days ago he came here to get groceries and did not come back home – ”

            “You live with him?”

            “Yes.”

            “For two months,” Nezumi said – but it wasn’t Nezumi, it was Ko, Shion fought to wrap his mind around it. Ko looked sad. “He lived with you for two months, right?”

            “Yes.”

            “My wife was frantic. The girls thought I wasn’t coming back. I was gone from home for two months, guess I have Nezumi to blame. Felt like myself again around here a few days ago, realized I’d wandered here again – I’ve been wandering here a lot in the past few years. When I got back home my wife was sobbing, told me I hadn’t been home in two months – I could hardly believe it.” Ko rubbed his face with the palm of his hand. “What about before two months ago?”

            “I saw him here. No, I guess it was you. I saw you – ”

            “And I gave you my phone number.”

            Shion nodded numbly. “It was the first time I saw you – no, Nezumi – in six years. He’d left six years before with a promise to come back, and never did, not until that day.”

            “Ah. I see. Shion, if it makes it any easier – He tried to come back. I kept appearing in this damn market, wondering why one of my alters had taken me here yet again. For years, I’d appear here, it just became routine to find myself at this market or halfway here. I guess – he was trying to come back to you for a while, do you see? And I kept getting in the way. How – I mean, how well did you know him? What is your relationship?”

            There was a clear question that Shion didn’t see the need to answer. It was obvious, after all. “I met him when we were twelve, eleven years ago. I only saw him for one night, then he was gone for four years.”

            “When I was sixteen I went missing for months,” Ko mused.

            “Nezumi was with me. He’d come back when we were sixteen, saved me, we – we went through a lot in a few months, and he left, said he had to figure things out, promised to come back.”

            “And then we met here six years later, and I gave you my number. Why didn’t you call?”

            “I did. A little girl picked up. She said I had the wrong number. I called again, a woman picked up and said Nezumi was – was dead.”

            “Shit. Shion, I’m sorry. The girls don’t know a Nezumi, but my wife… She must have figured out it was an alter. She worries, you see? That one of the alters will take over and won’t let me come back. I mean, after being gone for two months, I guess her worries are valid. She must have tried to keep me from seeing you thinking you would trigger Nezumi to come out, and that he would stay.”

            “So…Nezumi doesn’t know. About the DID.”

            “I doubt it, if he hasn’t told you. From what I know, only two of the alters are aware that they are alters. One of them can even speak to other alters, but she won’t tell my therapist anything about them. The other has paranoia, is convinced that the other alters are trying to kill him. He’s done some self harm – I woke up with cuts on my wrist one night when I was fourteen, and it was a long time before my mom believed it wasn’t me but that alter.”

            “There are men and women?”

            “Oh, yeah. I’m aware of five alters – well, six now, with Nezumi. Two are women, four are men. Well, one is just a boy, actually, only four years old. They range in gender and age. The woman alter who occasionally stays present for a few days is allergic to seafood – she almost died, actually, when my wife served her tuna because I’m not allergic. It’s difficult to understand, but these alters really are full-fledged people. We just share the same body, but they all have their own lives, personalities, hopes, goals, fears, allergies, mannerisms – you name it.”

            Shion knew this. Nezumi was not a part of anything. He was a whole, an entirety, never a fraction but a totality. When Shion had been certain he was a percent of something bigger, he had looked at Nezumi with jealousy in seeing a person so completely and autonomously himself, a part of nothing else, a section of no greater thing than his own being.

            To be told that this man shared a body was unconceivable.

            “Right. Well, Shion, I’ve got to get going, but really, if you have any questions about anything at all, please call. Like I said, I’ve never known an alter to have made actual relationships, and I feel horrible about it. I want to make this as easy as possible on you, and I’m sure you’re still confused on some things – I mean, it took me months to fully understand it all, and I’m still baffled by some of it.” Ko chuckled, that light laugh again. He had a smile that came too easily, teetering on a laugh. His expression was softness, ease, friendliness.

            Shion had seen this expression etched into Nezumi’s face only when he was asleep, and even so, rarely then, as his sleep was plagued by nightmares. To see it now was painful – it was all Shion had wanted on this man, but this man was not the right man.

            The undercurrent of Ko’s words tickled Shion’s chest with uncertainty. “What do you mean, you feel horrible?” Shion asked, a thread from one of his sleeves unraveling now, but he paid it no notice.

            He noticed instead the flicker of hesitation followed by the curve of a smile too easy for that face, too trusting.

            “Well, you guys were friends, right? And roommates. Wish I could just conjure the alters when I wanted, then I could bring him back to say goodbye. Sorry it has to be like this. But look, you have my number, right? Yeah, so just, you know, if Nezumi happens to wander my body back here, give the wife a ring, and she’ll come pick him up. I’m sure she could take him to the therapist, and he’ll bring me back with hypnosis, or at the very least, keep Nezumi out of trouble until I come back. Don’t need this guy knocking anyone up or anything like that, right?” Another chuckle, but Shion hardly heard it.

            “What?”

            “I mean, none of the alters have ever tried to go anywhere when they come out, but this Nezumi is obviously pretty determined to come back to you – He’s brought me here a crazy amount of times and even managed to live here with you for two months, hasn’t he? But I’m sure my therapist can take care of him.”

            The waiter hovered back with a pitcher to refill a glass that was already too full. He left after a glance.

            Shion wondered how many people had left his life, how many he had walked past and known in just a glance, then dismissed in the same easy gesture. He could not count them, could not fathom them.

            He could count those who had stayed. Those who had mattered.

            “I don’t understand.” It would have been easier to have a sign with the words written in large black letters. Shion could have saved his breath, although he wasn’t sure why he would need to.

            Ko’s politeness was stretched to a breaking point by that unnatural tilt of his grin. “Well, I mean, I have a family, Shion. You understand that. I have a wife waiting for me at home. I have two daughters, a four-year-old, and the other is just turning two. They need their father, I can’t be disappearing for months at a time because this Nezumi is determined to live his life elsewhere. I have a job to keep to provide for this family. I have a life.”

            “Nezumi has a life too.”

            “What are you trying to say? Shion, I trust that you’ll call my wife if Nezumi ever brings my body out here again.”

            “It’s his body too.”

            Disbelief was a blemish on the friendliness that once knew Ko’s expression. “He may rent it occasionally, but I own it, Shion. That is how DID works. One person is born with one body. The alters come at later times, but their names are not on the birth certificate. I’m sure Nezumi is a great guy, but I have made a life for myself, and I won’t have it hijacked by a personality that had second dibs on my body. I have a wife and two young daughters. They deserve a husband and a father. I’m sure you understand.”

            Shion stared at this face, this face that was Nezumi’s. There was the dark hair Shion had wrung between his fingers, there were the lips he’d stained with his own, there was the cheek rested against his hair while they danced, there were those eyes, those damn grey eyes that were nobody’s but Nezumi’s, not Ko’s, not five and possibly more other alters.

            Shion nodded. “I understand.”

            Ko watched him warily, and Nezumi was back, for the smallest of moments, hidden in the suspicion and the distrust that flickered and left with Ko’s small smile.

            “Right. Good. Again, you have my number. It was good talking to you. It’d be a pleasure to speak with you again, if you ever want to meet up. I’ll be seeing you.”

            When he stuck out his hand, Shion took it, felt in it only Nezumi’s palm, Nezumi’s fingers briefly on his skin again, Nezumi’s warmth fleeting and gone a moment later.

            When he turned, Ko’s expressions were gone and all that was left was Nezumi’s back – yes, Shion knew this back, had watched it walk away many times and watched it again with no doubt that this man was Nezumi, only Nezumi, always Nezumi, and always leaving him, the one forever Shion could count on.

*


	3. Chapter 3

Shion was shaving when the front door slammed open. He did not nick himself, but finished scraping off the last patch of shaving cream, then washed his face with lukewarm water.

            He was not hoping, but perhaps he was stalling the moment of disappointment.

            “Don’t know what’s gotten into my manager. The idiot all but accosted me on the street, shouting about missed rehearsals and shows and absolutely refusing coherence.”

            The bathroom door swung open, and it was Nezumi, not Ko, not even close, just Nezumi, all furrowed brow and exasperation but amusement playing along the edges all the same, a strange brand of pleasure in the increasingly astounding moronic capacity of others that was unique to Nezumi and Nezumi alone.

            Shion dried his face on a towel in an attempt not to run into the man’s arms. Instead, he hovered by Nezumi’s chest, then reached out and cupped a cheek with a slightly damp hand just to be sure.

            “What are you doing?”

            There were two choices, there were two explanations, there were two options. One was the truth.

            Shion wasn’t quite sure which one it was. There was only one truth, to him, and this was Nezumi.

            He was only Nezumi, always Nezumi, could not be this other man named Ko with a rare disease Shion had spent the last five months researching. If this man was also Ko, then Nezumi did not exist while Ko did, while any of the other alters did, and there simply wasn’t a world where Shion was existing and Nezumi was not.

            That could not be the truth.

            “Nothing,” Shion whispered, but he didn’t pull his hand away. He pressed his forehead into Nezumi’s collarbone and fought not to embrace him because he might not ever let him go.

            “You’d think the news would keep me updated on National Act Bizarre Day, but I suppose I’ve been left out of the big secret. Personally, I’ve had enough. On top of that they were out of carrots in the market, said they weren’t in season, which is complete bullshit but they were adamant, as if they weren’t boasting last week about what a great few months it would be for crops.”

            The man had missed five months but was not aware of missing even five minutes.

            Such an illusion could not last forever.

            But Shion was starting to think he had no use for forever. He had no use for fairytales, for such fragile concepts.

            All he wanted was a little more time.

            All he needed was to know he had a few more moments that could be remembered with nostalgic remnants of happiness when forever finally caught up with him.

*

Nezumi was gone three weeks later. Shion woke to an empty bed.

            No, that wasn’t quite right. It couldn’t be empty, as he was still in it.

            It just felt empty.

            Shion wondered if he was shrinking into nothingness, or if the rest of the world was growing around him while he stayed as he was, just another way for insignificance to creep onto his heels without his notice.

*

He saw Nezumi the next day, though it was clear before relief could hit that it was not Nezumi at all.

            “Hey! Hey, Shion!”

            Ko’s rage was not like Nezumi’s. It did not glint in grey eyes but furled in lips that bared two rows of teeth, fighting each other.

            Shion did not run. He waited.

            He was good at waiting, he had learned.

            “I know he came here. Three weeks – the other alters never stay more than a few days, but this Nezumi, this bastard likes to take his sweet time. I know it was him, and I know he came here, he always comes here.”

 _He always comes here._ Shion loved the sound of it.

            “You let him stay for three weeks. Christ, I thought you had some sort of rationality, I pegged you as a decent guy, you know? But instead you’re – you’re – What is wrong with you? How selfish can you be?”

            “How am I any more selfish than you are?” Shion asked. He wanted to reach out, touch that face again, let it melt into an expression he could recognize under his palm. He kept his fists at his sides instead, with fingers that crept out only to worry the sleeves of his shirt.

            “I have a family! Shion, please understand, I can’t keep leaving them, you’ve got to stop Nezumi from doing this. You can’t keep him here. Call my wife, let her take me back – ”

            “He won’t want to go.”

            “It’s not his decision!”

            “So you’re kidnapping him. You said alters are completely their own person, so you’re suggesting taking away this person’s free will for the benefits of yourself – ”

            “For the benefits of my daughters, of my wife. You’re insane – I thought you were reasonable, but I was wrong, you know that? And hold on, if you’re all about free will, I bet you didn’t tell him, did you?”

            The weather had not been on its best behavior, and chilled Shion’s skin with teasing jibes. “Tell him what?”

            “I knew it. Accuse me of taking away his free will, but you won’t let Nezumi choose either. Tell him he’s an alter. You’ve got to tell him, he has a right to know if he’s going to make his own decisions. If he comes back again, explain DID to him, tell him that he’s just one in many alters, tell him the host personality has a wife and two little girls who cry when their father is gone and is trying to live a normal life despite his disorder, and let him choose what to do. See if this guy is still content to be here. See if he can tell right from wrong.”

            Right from wrong. Truth from lies. Was it fair to place that decision on Nezumi? Was it fair for Ko to say what to do, or for Shion to choose?

            “He’s not just your alter. He’s a person. You said it yourself, he has his own goals, his own hopes and dreams and fears, and you want to just take them away from him? You want to lock him up until he disappears? How can you decide whether your life is worth more than his? How can you make that decision?”

            The smugness on Ko’s expression almost brought back Nezumi. Almost.

            “I’m not making the decision. I’m asking Nezumi to make it. Tell him the truth, and let him decide who deserves to live his life more. I don’t want to fight you, Shion. But I have a family, and a right to live my life, and I will fight for that, just as you are fighting for Nezumi. Let Nezumi speak for himself. Give him my number if he comes back.”

            There was no handshake at the end of their meeting. Ko got into a taxi, but it was Nezumi being driven away.

*

“Favor? And why should I do you a favor?” Onion and ranch wafted with the demand, and Shion worked not to cringe.

            “Because Nezumi is the best you have, and if you don’t do me this favor, you’re going to lose him.”

            “The best I have, huh? I like to think the best I’ve got isn’t some high and mighty pain in my ass who can’t be bothered to show up half the time or give notice of his continual absences!”

            Backstage of the theater was cramped enough without Nezumi’s manager’s soiled breath spreading to every inch it could inhabit.

            “Hire an understudy for each of his parts. I know you’ve got the funding, as I helped put together the committee to rebuild this theater. But when Nezumi comes back, don’t tell him that he missed shows. Just continue on as if he’d always been here.”

            “So feed into the lazy ass’s habit, that’s what you’re asking.”

            “Yes.”

            The manager laughed, a bark of a laugh that Shion endured because he had to.

            “And if I don’t?”

            “Then he’s gone.”

            “What, you’re going to tell him to quit?”

            Shion nodded. He’d do what he had to. “He’ll listen to me.”

            Another bark of onion and ranch. “He listens to no one.”

            “He’ll listen to me,” Shion repeated, and perhaps it was something in Shion’s voice, or expression, or maybe the manager was nearly suffocating from the stench of his own breath, but in a minute, his incredulous amusement fell away and he was squinting.

            “Well, all right then. Don’t mention the missed plays. Fine. Do you know if he’ll be in for tonight’s?”

            “I don’t think so.”

            “That asshole… He’s lucky I’m a nice guy, I’ll tell you that. And you better tell him too, pain in my ass doesn’t even appreciate the lengths I go to put up with him…”

            Shion nodded. Two days before, Ko had asked him to tell Nezumi the truth if he returned again.

            But listening to others did not yield results Shion was eager to reap again. The last time he hadn’t fought, Nezumi had walked away for seven years.

            Shion would do whatever he could to stop that from happening again.

*

Waiting did not get easier.

            There was no reason to expect Nezumi’s return. Their first reunion had taken four years, their second had taken seven. Their third had only taken five months, but Shion could not rely on that.

            It was a mistake, to keep buying groceries for two, and to go into the market looking for that dark hair, that pale skin, that tall frame.

            Never the eyes, as they were too quiet to be seen at a distance.

            Shion continued sleeping on the bed even though it was too big in case Nezumi returned in the middle of the night. He made tea for two and filled Nezumi’s cup, drank his own while watching the mug on the counter shred every last wisp of steam.

            His twenty-fourth birthday was spent alone, as was his twenty-fifth.

            On his twenty-sixth, Shion only bought groceries for one.

*

It was Nezumi’s boots.

            They were strewn by the door when Shion walked in. He noticed them but thought nothing of it, other than vaguely to wonder if the man had put on soup, as he was starving.

            Only when his own shoes were thrown next to Nezumi’s did Shion’s skin flush, his pulse darting all over it, painting it red, hot, the very definition of flustered.

            It had been nearly three years since those boots had been strewn beside his. It was a routine Shion should have long forgotten, fallen out of somewhere between the changing of seasons. One hand braced the wall, holding him up as the creases of his other palm caught his breaths.

            He could not collect himself fully, but halfway was enough to allow himself to walk to the kitchen. Walk, not run.

            Nezumi stood with his back to him, at the sink. He was singing gently, and it was only the blood rushing through Shion’s ears that had prevented him from hearing the sound earlier.

            A white string tied around the back of Nezumi’s shirt – an apron, Shion realized, and he wanted to laugh and cry but did neither, only stared and listened.

            Two minutes passed before Nezumi turned, immediately catching Shion holding up the doorway. “Are you just going to stand there or help wash the dishes? Useless, tsk,” Nezumi muttered, as if it hadn’t been three years.

            Shion had never thought he would be jealous, to be a personality sharing a body.

            But this man never had to wait. He only had to appear and to come back. He did not have to doubt. He did not have to wonder whether to buy groceries for one or two.

            “And we’re nearly out of bread – Didn’t I just get some? Have you been feeding squirrels again? Don’t attract those rodents here, they’re dirty, nothing like mice.”

            Shion staggered to the sink, careful not to brush his body against Nezumi’s, not sure he was ready yet. He slammed the faucet all the way on, a full stream of water he set to scalding, and thrust his hands under it.

            “Watch it. We’ve got a water bill, you know. Airhead.” Nezumi lowered the faucet, and Shion began to wash the dishes. Nezumi stood beside him, drying each dish Shion handed to him, careful not to let their fingers touch.

            The effort was moot. Their elbows bumped one, two, three, four times by the time Shion finished washing. He turned the faucet off and gripped the sink, faint, heart too loud, sure Nezumi would hear it now that the faucet was off.

            “Yo, Your Highness – ”

            Shion turned, but the moment he pulled his hands from the sink they were on Nezumi, sudsy and wet and in Nezumi’s hair, tilting the man down so that he could kiss him, rough, hard, angry because this was supposed to be their normal, washing and drying the damn dishes was supposed to be a routine they _shared._

            Instead, it was only Nezumi’s normal, it was only his routine, but it was Shion’s exception, rarer than a birthday, and he couldn’t even celebrate it because he wanted the normalcy, he wanted the casualness with which Nezumi acted, like they did this every day, like this was a life stretching out the span of forever.

            “Your hands are wet, idiot,” Nezumi objected, but it was all he could manage to fit in the small space of time where Shion allowed him to pull his lips away.

            Shion was pushing Nezumi until the man was against the wall, and he wanted to keep pushing, but there was nowhere for Nezumi to go, not at that moment.

            “Hey – Calm down – What – ”

            Shion wanted to slide his hands up Nezumi’s shirt, but the damn apron was in the way, and he fought with it for a minute before giving up, frustrated, equally willing to shove his hand down Nezumi’s pants, but the apron went to the man’s knees.

            Anger welled up. The damn apron. The _goddamn apron._

            Shion’s hands were in fists that knotted the cloth, and he broke from Nezumi’s lips only because he was sure he would bite him, too hard to be playful. Instead, he shoved his face into Nezumi’s chest and muttered curses at the damn apron.

            “Shion. Shion!”

            Nezumi’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him back, but Shion didn’t want to let him see, didn’t want this to be anything but normal, anything but routine.

            All he wanted was to pretend. To pretend that it hadn’t been three years, that he wouldn’t have to sleep with fear that the next day would bring another empty bed, another batch of years spent waiting.

            Nezumi was stronger, had Shion out of his chest and only then let go of one shoulder to force Shion’s head up by the chin.

            Shion blinked until the blurriness faded into clarity. Nezumi was watching him, saying nothing, his face blank but for a slight dip of his lips on one side.

            Another minute of silence, and Shion let his hands unravel from the apron.

            “Come on. What is it?”           

            “The apron,” Shion mumbled, a slur of thick syllables.

            “What?”

            “The apron. I don’t like it,” Shion said, more loudly.

            Nezumi scooped his bangs from his forehead and left his fingers weaved into his dark hair, eyebrows knitted. “You’re fucking insane.”

            “Yes,” Shion agreed. He could accept that. He was insane, but Nezumi was not, Nezumi was normal, just Nezumi, always Nezumi.

            Nezumi slipped the apron from his neck and deliberately threw it on the counter. “Better?”

            That wasn’t Nezumi’s shirt. It was Ko’s, Shion knew. He wondered how Nezumi had rationalized it.

            Definitely not with the truth. Nobody would think such a thing.

            “Yes. Much better.”

            Nezumi pulled Shion closer by his arm, leaned down and kissed him with an open mouth, lips that pulled on his slowly, like he was unwrapping Shion, kissing off his skin until all that was left was the worry he felt pulsing under his flesh. But Nezumi kissed him so gently, so slowly that the worry melted away, and Shion was full of nothingness.

            No, that wasn’t quite right. Shion was full of Nezumi.

*

Nezumi was naked and beautiful, and there was a part of Shion that wished he were an artist, as this body would be perfect to draw, and to draw it would be the perfect excuse to stare for as long as he wanted.

            Now, he didn’t need an excuse. It was not yet morning but long past night, and Shion still had not fallen asleep. Nezumi lay beside him, illuminated by nothing but eyes that had long since become accustomed to the dark of the room.

            Nezumi lay on his back, but his hips twisted and his legs were tangled with each other and the blanket. One arm was strewn above his head among dark locks of hair and the other fell over his ribs and folded onto the mattress. He was a canvas of pale skin over lean muscle but for the blemish of a hickey on his collarbone, and of course, the burn on his back Shion could not see.

            Even relaxed in sleep, the expression was completely Nezumi’s, only an expression that did not often see the light of day. There was such a peacefulness that Shion wondered if everything else had been a dream – there could not possibly be more than one personality fighting for this body, this beautiful body that had _Nezumi_ scrawled all over it.

            It occurred to Shion, for the first time, that this body was not only touched by himself. He wondered if Ko’s wife ever left hickeys on his collarbones, if she bruised those lips like Shion had, if she was able to make that pale skin blush and sweat and shake underneath her.

            Shion didn’t like thinking these things, and closed his eyes on the thoughts and Nezumi’s body, because suddenly, it wasn’t just Nezumi’s body. It was not just a body that opened to Shion’s touch but a body that hoisted little girls on its shoulders and held a wife in its arms on cold nights in bed. It danced with a woman on its wedding night and ran around the house playing hide and seek with its daughters.

            Shion’s stomach turned, and he pressed his hand against his lips. He realized that he could not remember if he had even bitten Nezumi’s collarbone that night, and thought the hickey looked a few days old anyway, already fading into that pale skin.

*

“I’m perfectly fine with you keeping your anger bottled up inside, but if you could find a different vent than our dinner, that’d be much appreciated.”

            Shion looked over his shoulder. Nezumi was licking the soup spoon.

            “I’m not angry.”

            “Great. Find a way to express your complete contentment and joy that doesn’t involve massacring the potatoes.”

            The potato he was peeling sat at half its usual size in Shion’s hand. It appeared to have been stabbed several times, though Shion had no recollection of treating the vegetable with such cruelty.

            “I’m not angry,” he repeated, putting down the potato and picking up another, gingerly.

            “Heard you the first time.” Nezumi did not look at Shion. He left the kitchen, and Shion butchered the remaining potatoes before washing his hands and finding Nezumi on the couch with a script.

            “I’m telling you I’m not angry.” Shion realized his hands were shaking, and clenched the kitchen doorway to steady them.

            “Three times so far, I’ve noticed. Shall we try for a fourth?”

            “You don’t believe me.”

            “Should I?” Nezumi glanced up from his script, a quick calculation of grey eyes that swept over Shion’s face before returning without pause to his lines.

            “Why should I be angry?” The demand was out before Shion could stop it, and he clenched his hands tighter on the wood.

            He did not want to hear this answer, not when he spent every day trying to forget it.

            Three years, and seven before that, and five months between them.

            Why _shouldn’t_ he be angry?

            “Well, the potatoes are ruined, which puts a bit of a damper on the soup. I’d say that calls for some strong emotional response. I myself am fighting off tears, trying to put on a tough show for you. Can you tell?”

            Nezumi was normal. He was sarcastic and unconcerned but for the slight crease between his eyebrows that he would not acknowledge unless Shion asked him to.

            Shion wished he could be normal too, but he carried the burden of _three years and seven before that and five months between them and who knew what time span would come next, it could be forever._

            “I’m not angry,” Shion repeated, giving Nezumi that fourth time, quietly now, fingers unraveling and limp from the doorframe, slapping his thighs when his hands fell by his sides.

            The crease between Nezumi’s eyebrows deepened; the rest of his expression stayed smooth. “Good,” he said, to his script.

            Normalcy was resumed.

*

In the spaces of time that were too short to drink tea and read with just thighs and shoulders touching in bed, Shion and Nezumi did so anyway.

            There was always the thought that these times with Nezumi were only memories in the making, things to hold on to when the spaces between reality ran their course. Overriding the knowledge of the inevitable, however, was the strangest feeling of forever, as if living uneventfully, pretending today would not be their last could create an alternate truth. It was as if denial could reward Shion, could be a means to create what he knew could never be their truth, a means to create a life together they could never truly live.

            Peace was begged by the languid swirls of smoke from mugs, by the casual brush of elbows that had none of the passion of short-lived romance. There was the comfort of familiarity in the routine Shion allowed himself to act out, and the fact that this was truly not familiar nor routine was not dwelled upon. Shion was content to bask in his illusion of forever only because contentment could come no other way. It was a guise for the sorrow Shion would not let himself feel, a mask only present until the inevitable moment when their forever would be revealed again by their reality.

*

Shion closed the door before the night sky could slip in and kicked off his shoes beside Nezumi’s boots. He threw his jacket on the bed and wandered into the kitchen, finding a dark haired, grey-eyed man leaning on the counter, sipping out of Nezumi’s mug, watching him stop short in the doorway at the realization that was immediate.

            “Ko,” Shion breathed, sagging against the doorway. There was sadness and resignation and guilt and fear and they pushed him, hand-in-hand with gravity. His knees could hardly hold the burden.

            Ko paused only to look at him, then glanced around the kitchen. “So this is where he lives. Nice place. You’ve got some mice though, should look into that, don’t want an infestation, do you? Who’s the reader, you or him?”

            “How long have you been here?”

            “Couple hours. I’ve been admiring the snow. Strange, how winter sneaks up on you. It seems like only yesterday it was hot as hell. Turns out the most humid summer in years couldn’t even last a morning.”

            “Ko – ”

            Nezumi’s mug was slammed down on the counter with such vigor Shion expected it to break.

            “I missed both my daughters’ birthdays. Yesterday I had a seven-year-old and a five-year-old. Today, I find out they’re now eight and six. Strange, seeing that their birthdays are months apart.”

            Shion said nothing. Gasped air, and it was thick, coming down his throat.

            Ko ran a hand through Nezumi’s hair. No, that wasn’t Nezumi’s hair. Nezumi was gone, of course, _Don’t be stupid, Shion._

            “Look, right now, I don’t give a damn about you and this asshole stealing my life. I want to get to my wife and daughters because apparently I haven’t seen them in months. Oh, I’ll have it out with you, and we’re going to sort out this whole nightmare real soon, but at this moment, I really don’t want to see your face because honestly, I don’t trust myself not to bash it in.”

            Shion wanted to stand there and take it, but there was the fact that it wasn’t completely his fault, that he was the victim too, and Shion fought for himself. “Then why are you still here?”

            “Funny you should ask.” Bared teeth clipping out words suggested anything but funny. “You know how I woke up, Shion?”

            It was a second before Shion remembered how he had left Nezumi, before heading out to a late committee meeting.

            “Naked. Naked on that bed over there, and I wasn’t too concerned, but I felt a bit _sore_ , Shion. Why do you think that is?”

            “I don’t see how this matters,” Shion managed, fighting to keep himself standing, to keep his voice firm. “This is none of your business – ”

            “You _idiot!_ There are two people in this body, you do realize that, don’t you? Every time I come back to it, I check my veins for scars because who knows, this maniac could be a druggie – ”

            “Hey!”

            “ – but I guess I got lucky, and he’s not shooting up, but you know what, I’ve got to check anyway, because this is my body too. The thing is, drugs wouldn’t be as bad because that would just harm me, but for my body to become a threat to my wife without me knowing is not okay.”

            Shion was trembling, shook his head, could hardly keep his gaze steady on the enraged face, grey eyes in slits, lips contorted. Had he just kissed those lips hours before? “Your wife? I don’t – ”

            “Sex, I have sex with my wife – This body affects her, Shion. There are two people in this body, so remaining faithful when I’m present doesn’t guarantee anything. Who knows what diseases this guy has picked up – ”

            “He’s not diseased!”

            “Nezumi’s sexual partners. List them.”

            “That’s not your business – ”

            “It’s my fucking body of course it’s my business!” Ko shouted.

            “He doesn’t have diseases,” Shion repeated, voice hard.

            “Yeah, I don’t really care about taking your word for it. You know, I’ve never gotten tested after Nezumi started appearing. I didn’t even consider it, and I’ve had sex with my wife since then, and if that bastard has given her anything – ”

            “He’s not – ”

            “Christ, Shion! He’s not here, you don’t have to defend his pride! Be logical – this is my body, and it’s my business where it has been if that could be a possible health danger to myself or the people I love. You can understand that, can’t you?”

            Hands clenched and unclenched until Shion shoved them into his pockets. He nodded at the ground. “Yeah. Yeah, I – Okay. Since he came back – Since he was twenty-three, I’ve been his only sexual partner. I don’t have any diseases.”

            A pause, and Shion glanced up.

            Ko watched him carefully. “I see… How do you know that?”

            Shion felt his flush and clenched his jaw. “He’s been living here this entire – ”

            “I meant, how do you know you didn’t catch anything before Nezumi? Have you been tested?”

            Shion forced himself to relax. “I couldn’t have caught anything. Nezumi is the only person I’ve been with.”

            “Fine. What about him? Before you, I mean.”

            Shion shook his head. “I don’t know.”

            “You don’t know.” Disbelief slid off the flatness of Ko’s voice.

            “No! Why would it matter?”

            “Not all diseases show themselves up front, you know. Ever heard of HIV, Shion? Takes a few years to show symptoms.”

            “He doesn’t – ”

            “Pretty easy to pick up on the street – I’ve looked up the history of this place, wasn’t it next to some kind of slum a few years ago? I’m sure it was a prime breeding ground for whores – ”

            “That’s enough! You have absolutely no right, no grounds to suggest – ”

            “Don’t I? What, I’m supposed to assume model sexual behavior from a selfish asshole that doesn’t give a fuck about two little girls worried about their father to even give a call home and let his family know I’m at least alive?”

            The kitchen hummed with shouts ricocheting off the walls and steam still eagerly spewing from Nezumi’s mug on the counter.

            Shion fidgeted, fought the desire to back away from the man towering in his kitchen, wearing Nezumi’s clothes and skin and eyes and hair and lips.

            “I never told him.”

            His voice seemed so quiet after the shouting that Shion could not blame Ko for inclining his head forward, asking, “What?”

            “I never told Nezumi. About you and the DID. That he was an alter. Anything, I never told him anything.”

            Ko’s expression paused for a moment, a calm before the storm, which erupted in such a livid contortion that Shion cringed.

            “Right, so it’s just you who’s the selfish bastard, is it? What the hell is wrong with you? Is this a game to you? Do you find some amusement in denying reality? Cause that’s what I am, Shion, I’m reality, I’m the truth, and these little moments you’ve been stealing out of my life, they’re all a lie. You’re lying to this guy – I don’t know your relationship, and I don’t give a damn, but it can’t be much if he’s not worth the truth.”

            “You don’t understand – ”

            “I pitied you, you know? You looked so distraught in that market when you first saw me and thought I was Nezumi. You seemed so broken-hearted, like a kicked puppy, and yeah, I sympathized with you. It must suck, to learn a friend or whatever this guy is simply cannot exist anymore. But you’re just selfish, that’s all.”

            “I – ”

            “You listen to me.” Ko stepped forward, all slit eyes and even tighter lips. “I will tattoo my address and phone number on my chest. I will carve my name into my own flesh if I have to. Do you understand? I called my family today and my five-year-old – no, six-year-old daughter was crying, saying she thought I had died because she couldn’t think of any other reason I would miss her birthday. That will not happen again.”

            Shion’s eyes burned, and it hurt, everywhere hurt. He begged to be understood. “I promise you, I’m not a bad person. I’m not, I’m so sorry, I don’t want to take you away from your daughters or your wife or your life. I just – How long have you been with your wife, Ko?”

            Ko’s glare did not soften, but he contemplated Shion and answered. “Nine years.”

            Shion nodded, throat thick. “In total, I’ve had about just a little over a year with him – with Nezumi. Just a little over a year. I swear I’m going to tell him the truth, I want to, I’ve wanted to, but I’ve only had a year. I’m not asking for forever. I’ve given up on forever, but I just – I just want a little more time.”

            There was a small scrabbling sound, and three mice scurried in and out of Shion’s vision into the kitchen. They were not the original mice, who’d died years before, but three more that came to the house in Nezumi’s absence.

            Shion had thought Nezumi sent them. He wasn’t so sure, anymore.

            “How much is a little more time, Shion?” Ko was not angry. His voice was level, and he sounded tired.

            Shion didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know how to ask this man for a chunk of his life. He didn’t know how he could only manage on this chunk.

            Ko shook his head, sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “I want to go home, Shion. I want to see my family. I’m leaving now, and if I come back, you know what to do. I’m sorry. I really am. But I don’t think a little more time will be enough, and I don’t have any more to give you.”

            He passed Shion, slid on Nezumi’s boots, and was halfway out the door when he turned, found Shion still in the doorway watching him leave.

            “Tell Nezumi I’m sorry too.”

            Shion was alone.

*

Not for long.

            It was only two weeks before Nezumi walked through the door, complaining of the cold and trailing snow into the house.

            From the couch, Shion stared at him, then stumbled up and ran to the bathroom. He slammed the door, turned on the tap and the shower, and shoved a towel over his mouth to muffle the sobs that ripped out.

            He did not respond to the knock on the door, and came out of the bathroom ten minutes later with red-rimmed eyes, saying nothing.

            Even though it wasn’t the routine Shion had carefully crafted and Nezumi still believed, Nezumi demanded an explanation, and when denied, pressed like he never had before.

            _This is getting ridiculous!_ he shouted, and Shion didn’t respond.

            _Your business is your business, but if you think I’m just going to ignore this you’re even stupider than you look!_ he slammed his fist on the counter, and Shion didn’t respond.

            _Christ, Shion!_ he pushed Shion against the wall, and Shion didn’t respond.

            If he opened his mouth, he might finally say it.

            Instead, he stood and took Nezumi’s anger, Nezumi’s frustration, Nezumi’s sighs and curses and shouts and threats.

            He cherished it all, stored everything – his lips his eyes his voice his skin – in his memory where he would need it, someday soon.

            He didn’t only want the good things. He wanted the bad things, the things that hurt, the arguments and the snide comments and the insults.

            He wanted it all, every single thing that was Nezumi, every single thing that would make up his forever, even if it was made up of only memories.

*


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Shion was going to tell him, but Nezumi woke him up with a kiss and Shion couldn’t do it.

            The kiss led to sex, and Shion was late for work, no time for the truth, not yet.

            He took the longest route home, walked slowly and stopped at the market even though they didn’t need anything.

            Still, he arrived back home too early, opened the front door with dread, tried to think of other distractions, something left to stall with.

            Nezumi provided him an answer the moment Shion closed the door behind him.

            “I only had one sister.” Nezumi did not look at Shion. He sat on the couch, staring at a paper in his hand, and Shion pulled off his shoes slowly, thinking the words over two, three times in his head, trying to absorb them.

            “What?” Shion decided that he mustn’t have heard correctly. He walked to the couch and sat beside Nezumi, peering over his shoulder.

            It wasn’t a piece of paper. It was a photograph.

            “I only had one sister, but there are two girls here.”

            Grins stretched the pale skin of dimpled faces. Only one pair of grey eyes squinted back at him, but both had dark hair of an unmistakable color.

            If Shion had to guess their ages, he’d say eight and six years old.

            Nezumi’s gaze was heavy, but there was nothing Shion could do about his expression. He could hardly control his breathing and forced himself to inhale, staggered out an exhale.

            They were not Nezumi’s kids, but they _were_ Nezumi’s kids – Nezumi had two little girls, two daughters, and Shion couldn’t think, couldn’t look away from their ridiculous grins.

            Who had the right to be so happy?

            “Shion.”

            “I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you.”

            “Tell me what?”

            “I swear, I was going to tell you,” Shion murmured. They were beautiful, Nezumi’s daughters were beautiful, but of course they were, they were half of him. They laughed at Shion from their paper window between Nezumi’s fingers.

            “Okay. Tell me.”

            “I – I – ” Shion swallowed. The little girls were probably wondering where their father was now.

            Nezumi was a father.

            “Hey, spit it out – Shion, are you okay? This is bullshit, come on, let’s go.”

            Nezumi was off the couch, grabbing Shion’s wrist and pulling him up, into the kitchen.

            “Sit,” Nezumi ordered, pushing Shion gently onto a stool as he spoke and letting go of Shion’s wrist.

            “I have to tell you something, Nezumi, I have to tell you – ”

            “Shut up. Don’t talk, just sit and breathe. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

            “I’m fine – ”

            “Didn’t I say something about shutting up and breathing?” Nezumi snapped.

            Shion shut up and breathed. Watched Nezumi fill the kettle and set out Shion’s mug, just like any other day, just like routine.

            The photograph blemished the counter, and Shion tried not to look at it.

            Nezumi slid a mug of tea across the counter. Steam rose enthusiastically.

            “Nezumi, you should sit – ”

            “No talking until the cup’s empty. And wait till it’s cool, don’t go burning your tongue.”

            If it was strictly routine, Nezumi might have added an _Airhead_ at the end of his warning. Instead, he added a concerned look masked as a glare.

            Shion cupped the mug with his palms. Let the steam cover his face.

            While he sipped, Nezumi picked up the photograph. He scrutinized it without expression.

            Shion placed his empty mug gently on the counter, and Nezumi peered into it before giving him a nod.

            “You should sit.”

            “I’ll do what I want. Tell me what you have to tell me.”

            There was nowhere to start. Shion pulled on his sleeves, his glance at Nezumi reluctant.

            “Have you ever noticed that chunks of time are missing?” he asked, finally.

            It was easier to ask than to tell.

            Nezumi licked his lips, put down the photograph, came around the counter and sat on the stool beside Shion’s. He pulled on his bangs and sighed. “When I left, sometimes I’d be walking in the heat of summer, and then I’d look up and the leaves would be falling from trees, or I’d lay down to sleep, close my eyes, and find myself in a restaurant. I’ve never been big on science like you, and I don’t know how the brain works, but I can figure out some things. You know, defense mechanisms and shit. I left to clear my head, but it was tough, sometimes, facing everything I didn’t want to face before meeting you. I guess my brain was protecting me, giving me breaks by skipping over time every now and then.”

            Shion waited while Nezumi paused. The grey eyes were soft.

            “Since I came back, I’ve been blanking out less, I think. It’s just an adjustment thing, I’m sure it’ll go away completely in a couple months. I’m better, I really am. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have come back, but I’m ready to be here now. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry. It’s stupid.”

            Shion pressed his hands flat on the counter. He’d already unraveled several threads from his sleeve.

            “Nezumi – ” Shion shook his head, peered up at the grey, “I don’t know how to tell you.”

            “The stalling is getting old, so I’d suggest another route.”

            “Have you ever heard of dissociative identity disorder? DID?”

            Grey eyes narrowed. “No.”

            Shion breathed deeply, wished he had another cup of tea and an order from Nezumi not to talk until he finished it.

            “It’s a rare disorder, where many personalities inhabit one body. There’s the host personality – the person that is born in that body – and then there are alters – these are the other personalities.”

            He paused, but Nezumi made no reaction but to continue watching Shion with calculating eyes.

            “I read up about it a lot, actually. The alters usually appear in childhood, when the host personality undergoes some kind of recurring childhood trauma. This trauma is usually severe enough that the brain isn’t sure how to deal with it and hasn’t fully developed yet – so it develops into split personalities. The other personalities – the alters – come out during the following traumas so that the host personality doesn’t have to experience them.”

            Nezumi still gave no response, and Shion wished he would.

            At least a nod. At least a flicker of expression.

            “Um, and the thing with DID is most people don’t know they have it. Host personalities are not aware of their alters, they’re only aware of missing time when the alters come out. And some alters aren’t aware of each other, or even that they’re alters. They are full personalities, with pasts they fabricate for themselves and individual thought processes and their own wants and fears that are completely separate from the host personality. They’re completely separate people, all sharing the same body without knowing it. There are other symptoms, but that’s all that’s really relevant, unless – Is there something else you want to know?” Shion felt out of breath. He needed a reaction.

            Nezumi traced his top lip with his thumb before speaking. “Are you saying I have this? I have DID and alters take over my body sometimes?”

            Shion looked at his hands. “Not – Not exactly.”

            He glanced up. Nezumi raised his eyebrows.

            “You’re an alter. You don’t have DID; you’re a symptom of it.”

            “I’m a figment of some guy’s imagination that helps him cope with childhood traumas.”

            “No. No, that’s not – You’re real. You’re a real personality, you just weren’t… Your past isn’t real. Your family and your memories are all made up – well, some of them are real, I mean, obviously this conversation will become one of your memories, and this is real – it’s hard to explain, there are articles online – ”

            “You’re saying my mother was not real.” Nezumi was calm, face blank.

            “I’m sorry, Nezumi. She’s real to you, but…she never really existed.”

            “You believe that.”

            “Nezumi, it’s not a matter of what I believe. I know you’re not lying to me, that this is your truth, but it’s not the truth of reality. It – This must be hard for you – ”

            “It’s not hard for me. You’re wrong. Not sure how you came up with this diagnosis, but I suggest you stick with your own field.” Nezumi shrugged.

            Shion stared desperately. “I’m not wrong.”

            A grin unfolded on Nezumi’s lips, everything Shion wasn’t expecting. “Prove it.”

            The grin was everything Shion lived for, completely amusement and ease, the kind of smile Shion went to sleep thinking of so he could dream of it. He did not want to take it away, but he had to.

            He nodded, slid off his stool, left the kitchen and returned half a minute later with a slip of paper and the phone.

            “Call this number,” he murmured, sliding both to Nezumi.

            Nezumi glanced at the paper. “This again.”

            “Call it.”

            “If it’s games you want to play, I can think of a few that are considerably more fun than this.”

            “Call it, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi sighed dramatically, didn’t drop the grin as he picked up the phone and dialed the number. He laid the phone against his ear and stared at Shion, shaking his head.

            Shion waited for the grin to fade, memorized it while he could, hoped it would be enough to last.

            “Hello. I’ve been instructed to call this number – ” Nezumi stopped short, and Shion could hear the small voice frothing out of the phone from where he sat.

            He wanted to look away from Nezumi’s expression but needed to memorize that grin, though it had frozen, was seconds away from shattering.

            “You’re mistaken. I don’t know a Shinko or Ko or – No, you’re wrong, I’m not – ” Narrowed grey eyes widened, and Shion watched the smile break open into disbelief.

            He looked away.

            “How did you – Who are you?”

            “Give me the phone, Nezumi.” Shion reached out, looked at the phone but not Nezumi’s expression.

            “I don’t know who Ko – ”

            “Let me talk, Nezumi. Is it Ko’s wife?” He glanced at Nezumi then, was met with searching eyes.

            “Who is Ko?”

            “Give me the phone, and I’ll explain.”

            He was sure Nezumi would refuse, but the phone was dropped heavily into his hand, and Shion put it to his own ear. “Hello?”

            “Are you Shion?” It was the same woman who had told him Nezumi was dead, years before. Shion clenched the phone, his stomach turning.

            “Yes. Are you Ko’s wife?”

            “You’re finally telling the alter the truth.”

            Shion wondered what this woman thought about him. She probably hated him. She probably wondered what kind of person could take a husband and father away from his family.

            Shion knew how much it hurt, to wait for a loved one and not know where he was, when he would come back. He sympathized with this woman, but he was so incredibly jealous of her it hurt.

            He wanted to tell her how lucky she was, but he did not because Nezumi was staring at him, waiting for an explanation that Shion owed him.

            “Yes.”

            “Will you bring him back home?”

            _He already is home._ “I – I don’t think you should give me your address. It’s better if I don’t know. Could I give you mine? Would it be possible for you to get him here?”

            “Of course, yes, of course I’ll come.”

Shion recited his address, a hand over his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Nezumi.

“Shion – Thank you for doing this. Ko told me that this would be hard for you.”

            “How long will you be?” Shion asked, ignoring her, trying not to think about what Ko must have said.

            “I’ve got to drop the girls at my sister, and Ko mentioned you live an hour away. You can expect me in two hours, I think.”

            “Okay.” Shion hung up. There was nothing okay about two hours.

            He’d wanted just a little more time, but this was not enough. It was not nearly enough.

            “Shion.”

            He spoke with his hand still over his eyes. “The host personality’s name is Shinko. Ko. I’ve met him a few times. He gave me this phone number – I told you about him, remember? How I met you in the market a year before you came back, how you didn’t recognize me, how you gave me this number to call. Remember?”

            “Shion. Shion, this can’t be right.”

            “You came back after seven years but left after two months, and Ko came back, was furious because I hadn’t told you about him, about what you really are, and while you lived with me, his family wondered where he was with no answers. He told me to tell you, but when you came back again five months later I couldn’t. You stayed for three weeks, then left again for three years, then came back. And then I walk into the kitchen a few months after you’d returned, and instead of you, it was Ko standing at the counter. This was two weeks ago. Nezumi – I just wanted more time. That’s all I wanted, a little more time.”

            Lowering his hand, Nezumi was unveiled to him shaking his head, nothing but confused. “What does that mean? That woman – she described me – I’ve never heard her voice before, but she knew exactly what I look like, even my burn, she knew where it was and the shape and size – ”

            “She’s Ko’s wife. She knows he has DID, Ko told her about you, that you were an alter who always tried to come back here. Whenever Ko went missing, she knew there was a good chance your personality had control over the body you and Ko and the other alters share.”

            “No – That doesn’t – Why did you give her our address?”

            “She’s coming to get you.”

            “Why?”

            “Ko’s therapist can often access his alters using hypnotism. Never you, but some of the others. Ko thinks he might be able to access himself, if the therapist talks to you. Ko has a family, he has a wife and two daughters, and whenever you’re here, Ko is not with them.” Shion paused, decided at that moment what he knew he’d have to do. “I’m – I’m moving, Nezumi. After Ko’s wife picks you up, I’m moving, and I won’t tell you the address, so when you appear, you won’t try and find me.”

            “Did it not occur to you to consult me on any of this?” There was rage, and this was acceptable. It was a step beyond disbelief.

            “Whenever your personality shows up, you need to go to Ko’s therapist and have him try to bring Ko back. Let him live a normal life.”

            “What about my life, Shion?”

            Shion looked at the photograph, next to the phone number. He watched Nezumi’s fingers pick it up.

            “I don’t know what else is right, Nezumi,” Shion admitted, a ragged truth he tore out of himself and threw onto the table, something grotesque to look at, nothing like the smiles in the photograph stretching faces into something good, as if something good was possible.

            “These kids. They’re – They’re Ko’s?”

            “Yeah.”

            “And Ko. My body is his body?”

            Shion nodded.

            “So – They’re mine too, then. I have two daughters.”

            Shion was crying. He realized it too late to hide it, but tried to anyway, palms over his eyes and jaw straining to hold in breaths that rubbed his throat raw.

            The scratching sound was the familiar racket of stool against tile, and then hands were pulling Shion into a warm chest, a beating heart he pressed his face against and screamed into, silently. Fingers weaved into his hair, gentle, fragile, and they would not last, they would never stay.

            “Okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

            If this was okay, Shion wanted none of it. His fingers gripped Nezumi’s shirt, pulled the man closer; he wanted to inhale his entire being, wished he could take the person Nezumi was and put him in his own body, give him somewhere to rest when he was shoved out of the flesh where he belonged.

            Shion wondered where Nezumi went, when Ko was present. Somewhere cold, probably. Somewhere lonely.

            He did not know how long he hid in Nezumi’s chest, against a heart beat that was only Nezumi’s, that he had pressed his hand against over ten years earlier to feel beat out this same steady rhythm, the kind of beat that promised consistency, that promised forever.

            When he pulled away, it was only a few inches, and Nezumi’s fingers stayed in his hair.

            “Let’s run away,” Shion whispered, to Nezumi’s chest. “Let’s leave. We can go to America, or Australia, or an island, somewhere. When Ko comes back, he’ll be angry, but I’ll stop him from leaving until you come back, I promise.”

            “It’s okay,” Nezumi repeated.

            “Yes. It will be okay. We can leave, and it will be okay. We’ll have a little more time, and then it will finally be okay. All of the waiting and the years and the time and watching you walk away will be okay.”

            Nezumi didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to.

            Shion knew he hadn’t meant it. He knew it had only been a lie, that nothing really was okay. Shion was not mad at Nezumi for lying. He knew the temptation of lying, that it was easier than the truth, that it protected people, that for a little while – not forever, but just a little while – it could even be believed.

            “Say it’s okay,” Shion whispered, begged of Nezumi’s beating heart. It still beat as though it had forever, and Shion wished he could have that kind of ignorance.

            “Shion. It’s okay. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s…”

            Shion tried to memorize this voice. Another memory he needed to last, when nothing else could.

            Turned out the memories wouldn’t last either.

*

Shion was thirty-seven and poured his tea into the sink a second after he filled his mug.

            He picked up the phone. Dialed a number he’d memorized, the only thing that seemed to stick from that life he thought he must have lived once, long ago.

            “Hello?”

            “It’s Shion.”

            “One sec,” the girl said. It was the fifteen-year-old, Shion could tell immediately. She always sounded a bit sad, and Shion knew it was only because she was speaking to him. “Daddy!” she called.

            Shion pressed his palm against his lips. Wanted to hang up but never did.

            Instead, he waited.

            “It’s Shion.” There was a fumble of the phone, and then it was _him_.

            “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay, Shion, it’s okay.”

            Shion gasped his inhale, retched his exhaled, lifted his hand to wipe his knuckles over his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but listened to the gentle reassurance for half a minute more, then hung up.

            The words would not last forever, but they did not need to. Shion didn’t want forever.

            He just wanted a little more time.

 

THE END


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